Group Conducts Independent Study : 28.5% Violation Rate Told in Use of Car-Pool Lanes

The car-pool policy requiring two or more occupants is being violated by 28.5% of the drivers using the high-speed lanes during peak traffic hours on the Costa Mesa Freeway, a grass-roots highway safety group claimed Wednesday.

The figures released by the Irvine-based Drivers for Highway Safety differ dramatically from the 6% to 9% violation rates reported by the California Department of Transportation.

The private group’s findings are based on members’ visual counts.

“We’ve always believed that the violation rate was more than what Caltrans was saying, and the only thing I could see to do was to get out there and prove it,” said Joe Catron, chairman of the group and a former race-car driver.

In previous criticism of the car-pool lanes, Catron’s group had relied on public opinion surveys, different interpretations of Caltrans’s own data and studies of projects elsewhere. The group claims the lanes are unsafe because there is no barrier separating fast-paced traffic from the adjacent, slower-moving vehicles that may change lanes suddenly.

Caltrans installed the special lanes and has been monitoring them for the Orange County Transportation Commission (OCTC). Caltrans and OCTC officials said they would not comment on the findings because they have not seen the group’s report and have not reviewed the group’s research methods.

Catron said volunteers from his organization observed violators from cars that were driven in traffic along the 11.8-mile stretch between the Riverside Freeway and the San Diego Freeway. He said the group monitored traffic two days each week for five weeks, between 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. southbound and from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. northbound.

Caltrans stations its observers at fixed locations on bridges overlooking the traffic.

Catron said he believes his group’s method is more accurate because it covers more of the traffic that becomes congested between the 17th Street and Dyer Road overpasses. He said Caltrans has been using the Santa Clara Avenue bridge overlooking the freeway, which he believes is too far north of the congestion that occurs at the Costa Mesa Freeway-Santa Ana Freeway interchange to accurately reflect the situation.

“There is more of an incentive to violate where the congestion is at its worst, and they (Caltrans observers) are not positioning themselves to observe the worst area,” Catron said.

Catron said his group observed only cars, not vans--because it is too difficult to see inside them--and motorcycles. Cyclists are permitted to ride alone in the special lanes.

Narrowing the number of vehicles included in the group’s survey probably influenced the statistics, Catron conceded, but not nearly enough to account for the wide discrepancy between his group’s findings and Caltrans’s figures.

The organization has been involved in a dispute with Caltrans over the accident rate on the freeway since the carpool lanes were opened last November.

OCTC recently hired the University of California’s Institute for Transportation Studies to conduct an independent study of the accident rate, with findings expected to be released by month’s end.

Caltrans’s nine-month status report on the lanes’ performance is scheduled to be completed about the same time.

State and county transportation officials have strongly defended the carpool lanes, using previous reports to show that the lanes have helped the freeway carry more people, faster.